Amazon Rainforest is large, tropical rainforest that occupying the drainage basin of the Amazon River and its tributaries in northern South America, and covering an area of 2,300,000 square miles (6,000,000 square km). The nine nations that have the Amazon rainforest in their borders are Brazil, Peru, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. Tropical forests have been present in South America for millions of years and were at one point spread over most of the continent. It only cover about 6% of the Earth’s surface, but they are home to more than half the world’s total plant and animal species. The rainforests have begun to be destroyed in the last 100 years to make way for farm land. Today, the rainforests are being destroyed by 1.5 acres every second. It is believed that there may still be as many as 50 Amazon native tribes living in the rainforest that have never been in contact with the rest of the world. There were an estimated ten million Indians living in the Amazonian forest five centuries ago. Today there are less than 200,000.